When will you have all of the music you need?

[Davey]

Already? When I'm 65? Wheezing into your mask as the respirator plays your last tune? Not until the dancing calacas kick their bony heels together? The day of the Lord?

Yea, I know, a bit overly dramatic, but do you keep snagging music that you don't really need, just because that's what we do? Have you ever thought of just letting it go, being content with what you have? I guess the ipod and the switch to computer controlled playback of our music collections has led many people to jump down off the bandwagon. But isn't it still fun to get hold of the unknown, that first listen, and the next ten, kind of like why many of us will camp out in front of the TV on Sunday with a supply of beer and pork rinds, to see the future in real time, instead of just waiting for the quick recap after all of the damage is calculated. The thrill of victory, and all that.

I can't stop, but that's just me. Just grabbed a copy of Dear Science at the local vinyl emporium, but haven't even unwrapped it yet, and probably won't for a few days. Feels good in the hand, though :crazy:

[3-LockBox]

I think its a sort of catharsis for me. Although I don't think I buy near the volume some of you guys do, I still like hearing new music. Blame the internet. I would have never bought so many CDs otherwise - how would I? Radio sucks. Cable is ok, but yeah, I want to own it, play it on a whim. I rarely download; I want that hard copy in my hands.

Is it an addiction? maybe

[bobsticks]

I have as much music as I need but not nearly as much as I want...which is different, I suppose, but at best a matter of contextual thought and not one of behavior.

...and, yeah, it feels pretty good in the hand. I'm at that stage with my collection that I can randomly grab stuff out of the piles and have a nice "refresher"...lotta stuff to get to know on that serious and deep basis, eh?

It is what we do, after all.

[MindGoneHaywire]

For all intents & purposes I kind of reached a sort of saturation point a long time ago. But as it turns out I end up with far more music than I think I'll ever even be able to listen to, and at the moment, actually, I'm kind of overwhelmed. Eager to hear the new Brian Wilson...the Bowie live '72 is darned good...and I'm still enjoying Sloan & Beck. And in spite of feeling like I'm drowning in music, I nonetheless bought a few downloads--the Paul Westerberg, which is no longer available, the Raconteurs, which is like 150 times better than their first one, and the Foxboro Hot Tubs, which sounds good so far too.

Then last week I dragged a couple of 20-25-year-old cassettes out of the bottom of the closet that I've never digitized & maybe I waited too long as they now sound like crap. One was Orange Juice's first album, and I decided to buy the only download available, which is a collection of stuff they did before the first album, rawer, but they talk about it like the first album sux & I ain't with that. It's okay, but I do prefer the first rec. The other was an album that seems to have fallen through the cracks, nobody ever seems to talk about it while far lesser records are now deemed 'legendary lost' and the like. This was called Start Swimming!, and it's a live rec from like 1980 or thereabouts with the Bongos, the Raybeats, the dBs, Bush Tetras, & the Fleshtones. I saw it mentioned in the recent Fleshtones bio, but just barely, I think. I also had a Fleshtones ep on that tape, the one with a cover of the Rolling Stones' Play With Fire. I went & bought the first Fleshtones album as a download, but I'm guessing they just never got it down on vinyl...

Amazing that I'd spend one penny on anything or even go digging for tapes of poor quality (even by my decidedly non-audiophile standards), but there it is. Hey, there's a couple decent tunes on the Solange album...

[ForeverAutumn]

I have as much music as I need but not nearly as much as I want...which is different, I suppose, but at best a matter of contextual thought and not one of behavior.

...and, yeah, it feels pretty good in the hand. I'm at that stage with my collection that I can randomly grab stuff out of the piles and have a nice "refresher"...lotta stuff to get to know on that serious and deep basis, eh?

It is what we do, after all.

Stix makes a good point. I could play a different album every day and it would be years before I ran out of stuff to play. So, do I need more? Materialisticly, probably not. But in my soul, for the good of my overall being, I do need more.

Does a drug addict ever get so high that she says, "that's it, I've reached the ultimate high and I don't need any more"? Well, music is the same for me. I need to feed the addiction. Sure, I can stop anytime...but where's the fun in that?

[Troy]

Yep, need and want are 2 different things.

I have all I need, but not all I desire.

And I don't know what it is I desire until I hear it. When I hear that new song that clicks with me, it feels good, like scratching an itch.

When does one not need the ability to scratch an itch?

[Finch Platte]

When I'm deaf.

Not long now.

fp

[Slosh]

I'll have all the music I need when good new music is no longer being made.

NP:

[Luvin Da Blues]

I was just thinking about this very thing the other day but came to realize that it's like asking if you have had all the sex you need. NEVER!!!!!

Like my sig says...So Much Great Music, So Little Time.

[Luvin Da Blues]

I really need to want more music.

[audiobill]

As a side note:

The Decembrists (a much discussed RR band) are foregoing cds altogether with only releasing 1. digital downloads and 2. vinyl. It's a three volume set. Vol 1 airs Oct 14, Vol 2 Nov 4, and Vol 3 Dec 2.

Funny how they've put one foot into the future & one foot into the vinyl past - totally ignoring the everpresent everfading cd.

Another side note:

Michael Moore (love him or hate him) is releasing his next film for free on the internet for Americans and Canadians. International fans will have to pay.

I do love digital democracies,

Bill

[ForeverAutumn]

I hope that the Decemberists d/l is of decent quality. Maybe its my age but I like to have and hold the CD.

As for Michael Moore he could offer to pay me to see his next movie and I probably still wouldn't waste my time (I fall into the "hate him" camp. :)).

[BradH]

The thrill of victory, and all that.

But then there's the realization that comes after 5 or ten years that you spent a bunch of money on stuff that doesn't hold up, leading to what Troy calls a "Stalinist purge". I love that term because that's what it's really like. It's part of the price of staying on the hunt and it's a cycle I've backed away from for years now. This issue creeps into other formats also. I have about 220 laserdiscs that jump off the shelves and scream "Take me to the landfill" every time I walk into the room. They have no value whatsoever after being the cutting edge among videophiles for so many years. In the 90's I avoided the urge to buy a lot of DVD's because I could see NTSC was a dying format and I didn't want to go through the laserdisc thing again. I think that was a wise move. Also in the 90's I thought it was insane that my movie choices were restricted to what Blockbuster had or cable was showing. What if I wanted to track a director or cinematographer's career or explore films from a particular country? It seemed to me there should be some kind of huge database that had all these films and you could access them somehow. Guess what? That database is here and it's called Netflix. If I can have it in my mailbox within 2 or 3 days then do I really need to have a huge collection taking up shelf space? It's going to be the same with Blu-Ray for me except for a few concert flix and a small collection of movies. I'll keep the games and vinyl but the laserdisc experience has cooled me a little on the need for physical ownership of tons of stuff. That's a good thing because I've got a collector's habit really bad. With music it's different because there's no viable rental scheme so I can understand the convenience of downloading, I just think mp3's sound like crap. I mostly listen to older music or bootlegs anyway. When it comes to new music I want Uncle Dave on that wall. I need Uncle Dave on that wall.

[tentoze]

I don't buy anywhere near the quantity of new music as I was doing 2-3 years ago. I go looking in the racks at home, and find stuff I completely forgot I bought- and good stuff at that. Saturation point. Has to be something that's pretty intriguing to get me to bite these days.

[Slosh]

Just grabbed a copy of Dear Science at the local vinyl emporium, but haven't even unwrapped it yet, and probably won't for a few days. Feels good in the hand, though :crazy:BTW, Dear Science, is excellent. Spin that sucka! :)

[Swish]

As for Michael Moore he could offer to pay me to see his next movie and I probably still wouldn't waste my time (I fall into the "hate him" camp. :)).

Swish

[Swish]

I'll have all the music I need when good new music is no longer being made.

NP:

Swish

[jasn]

It took a bunch'o years of buying music in it's various media forms for me to realize it, but I can see now that finding, collecting and listening to new music is the true and most passionate hobby in my life.

Beginning over 15 years ago or so I was immersed with the CD club game to join, load up on the "free" CD's, quit and then start the process all over again to build my digital collection to replace classic and less convenient vinyl. This low-cost method of feeding my habit coincided nicely with the economic challenges of starting a family and establishing our home, so I wound up focusing mainly on back-catalog stuff. I was trying to keep up with new stuff too, but as many of you know from the same effort the pickings were slim at those clubs. Around '00 the clubs ran out of gas and I realized I didn't know squat about what was new and interesting. I'm really not sure which of those two factors came first.

I've always dedicated time to music, and aided with the new tools of the internet and some good sites to learn about what music to look for next (like this place), I have regained a sense of what's new, what I want, and what s*cks. I've not only caught up with what's new, but I've been able to go back and mine those past artists that I can only wish I had discovered way back when. I would have loved to share some of those older tunes with the gang of people I spent countless hours with sitting around our systems and searching all the nooks and crannies of a vinyl album. So for me new music has always meant new music to me.

So I use the "sink or swim" approach to keep my hobby alive and don't see myself ever declaring my collection complete. I'd hate to lose the momentum I've dedicated into this and hate even more to think I could conclude that new music isn't as good as the "old days". I use it as an ego boost to convince myself I'm not as old as I really am,\ and also for freaking my kid's friends out when I can tell them a thing or two about what they may want to check out. Actually, they probably think I'm just weird, like most of my long time friends that have long ago relegated music to background noise from a near-stagnant radio station.

Thx

[emesbee]

There will always be something I haven't discovered yet, or new stuff getting released. My CD collection is getting so large that it would probably take me a couple of years to play everything just once, but I will always be on the lookout for something new.

[opt80]

I can't stop the hunt,it is the same feeling I had when 8 yrs old looking through the LP racks at Toombs music Store in Charlottetown.

it is a mental thing,I have enough to play forever,but who can refuse to buy the new Lucinda or the new Jackson Browne.not me.I am not that strong

[Doc Sage]

When will you have all of the music you need?

As mentioned above "need" and "wants" are two separate thing.

But "NEED" I could keep it to several dozen recordings. But it would the hard to keep it at the level for I am always searching for the next "aural buzz". Locally our last BIG recorded music retail outlet closed down last month leaving me with a perpetual craving.

I have learned to limit my on-hand inventory over the years. In the 70's I had over 1000 LP's. When I converted to digital, I sold all of them and in time been accumulating a good collection...but have been keeping it to about 300 units. My "customized" CD rack only holds so much. Once or twice a year, to contain my collection to this rack, I sell a dozen CD's or so to a local CD reseller.

Doc Sage

[thekid]

I'm with Sticks and F.A.

I have all the music I ever need but not the all the music I will ever want.
There is too much out there that even if I don't like the group they did had that one song that just got have in your collection.......

Since finding the joy of $1 LP's at the local thrifts I can combine the thrill of the hunt and the thrill of the music in one hobby. It is certainly a more interesting way IMO for collecting music than just clicking a few buttons on my computer and downloading tunes.

[ForeverAutumn]

When will you have all of the music you need?

As mentioned above "need" and "wants" are two separate thing.

But "NEED" I could keep it to several dozen recordings. But it would the hard to keep it at the level for I am always searching for the next "aural buzz". Locally our last BIG recorded music retail outlet closed down last month leaving me with a perpetual craving.

I have learned to limit my on-hand inventory over the years. In the 70's I had over 1000 LP's. When I converted to digital, I sold all of them and in time been accumulating a good collection...but have been keeping it to about 300 units. My "customized" CD rack only holds so much. Once or twice a year, to contain my collection to this rack, I sell a dozen CD's or so to a local CD reseller.

Doc Sage

Hi Doc. Welcome to AR.